The Greater Grief
by fowl68
Summary: For a moment, Yuan didn't recognize him. Didn't recognize that hollow look in red-tinted eyes, didn't know the tight line of the mouth or the furious set of the jaw. Pre-Game. Spoilers.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything!

 **Author's Note:** I was working on the last bit of Bottom of an Hourglass and this idea came into my head. I realized that while I'd worked with the grief after Martel's death, I hadn't really explored the events directly after Anna's death. So this is me working through one of the possible scenarios.

It took me forever, but I finally finished Daredevil-and Netflix did a _fantastic_ job, I think-and am caught up with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now I have to finish off the last season of White Collar and watch Grimm and Da Vinci's Demons. Also, I've been watching Doctor Who. I'm in the middle of the Eleventh Doctor. I've learned that Matt Smith bothers me; not because he isn't a great actor-I think he's a fantastic actor and he can be very mercurial with his characters, going from playful to dark beautifully-but it's that his face has this perfect symmetry that nags at something in my head so I can't concentrate on what I'm watching. My favorite Doctor is Nine, hands down.

We did well in the AAU Karate Nationals up in North Carolina. Between all three of the people who went from my dojo, we won three golds, two silvers and two bronze. It was an awesome time and I kind of wish I could have stayed in Raleigh a little longer; it's a beautiful city. I'm in the midst of moving for the first time in my memory. I've lived in this same house all my twenty-one years of life. It's a horrible feeling to know I'm not coming back to this house and that other people will continue making memories here, memories that I have no part of.

* * *

 _Perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.  
-Madeline Miller (Song of Achilles)  
_

* * *

The order had been logged less than three hours ago, from Forcystus' ranch, but under Kvar's identification number. _Prisoner A012 and traitor Kratos Aurion discovered in Iselia Mountains. Retrieve Angelus Project and destroy all evidence. Proceed with caution._

Yuan was flying before he consciously made the decision to, pushing himself to go faster because Kratos and Anna needed to be warned. He saw the smoke first, rising high into the sky, but the sounds of battle were coming from further away. Yuan let himself fall through the trees, dodging branches as best he could before landing rather haphazardly.

And now the forest was quiet. Yuan stretched his senses, but he could only hear one heartbeat, familiar. Yuan sprinted and nearly slipped in the grass for how damp it was with blood. _(His mind throws up memories of charred and broken bodies, of the knees of his pants soaked through with blood when he knelt by her side and once upon a time, he would have vomited at the smell of so much meat, but no longer)_

The heartbeat belonged to a person in a clear area of grass, soaked in red with a naked blade in his hand. For a moment, Yuan didn't recognize him. Didn't recognize that hollow look in red-tinted eyes, didn't know the tight line of the mouth or the furious set of the jaw. His mind didn't want to register it, but after a moment, it did.

"Kratos," Yuan called softly, trying not to startle him.

Kratos' head snapped up, eyes sharpening, grip tightening on the sword.

"It's me. It's Yuan." Spirits, please let him be of a mind to recognize him.

The grip loosened slightly. "Yuan."

"Yes." The horrible idea came to him. "Kratos…where's Anna and Lloyd?"

Something fell away in Kratos' eyes, turning dim and dark. "They're gone."

Ice crackled its way into Yuan's chest, dropping into his gut. He noticed Kratos' other hand clenched tight around something, but it was difficult to make out what it was. "Both of them?"

"I killed her, Yuan," Kratos rasped. "They turned her into…She asked me to kill her."

And he had. Yuan's eyes dropped to Kratos' hands, blood-covered as the rest of him. But that was Anna's blood. Anna—vibrant, fiery, passionate Anna. They'd probably removed the Exsphere, turned her into a monster. "Where's Noishe? And Lloyd?"

Kratos turned, eyes going back behind him. Yuan knew what was in that direction. Cliffs. Had they fallen? Or been thrown? "They fell." Kratos turned back to him, the sword dropping from shaking hands. "They're gone, Yuan."

Yuan strode forward and wrapped his arms around him. There were no words for this. Nothing was okay, nothing would be okay and apologies and platitudes were empty things. Instead, Yuan held tight as Kratos clutched at him, nose buried in his collarbone, shoulders shuddering and shaking, but tears weren't coming. Could they even cry anymore? _(He and Kratos are not what they were, once, but Kratos is still his brother, still his best friend so he does what Kratos had done for him, once. Stay steady and strong as an anchor, even while grieving himself. He had liked Anna, had called her friend…)_

"I killed them all, Yuan. Every one of them." And there was a dark satisfaction in Kratos' voice. Kratos had never liked violence, but everyone had their breaking point.

"They deserved it," Yuan told him. He had a harsher judgment than Kratos had ever had; some people did deserve death and Yuan was always happy to mete out the punishment.

"Every one except Kvar." He felt the shaking stop, felt the muscles of Kratos' back tighten beneath his hands. "He ran from the fighting like a coward." _(That is a harsh insult from Kratos, who was called coward by adults all of his childhood, all of his training)_

"He'll get his," Yuan promised. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, or even ten years from now, but he would get his punishment. If Kratos didn't make sure of that, Yuan would.

"He made me kill her, made her into…" Kratos couldn't call her a monster. Not Anna. He was the monster, not her.

"I know."

"How could you know?" Yuan swore he felt the air drop several degrees with Kratos' temper. Yuan pulled away from the embrace, confused. Kratos' eyes were narrowed and oh yes, there was the madness that Yuan knew so well from the mirror, that he had kept at bay. "You never killed Martel, you—"

"I might as well have," Yuan growled. That was a low blow and even grieving, Yuan wouldn't let Kratos get away with it.

"Was it your sword that went through her? Did she beg you to kill her?"

"You know she didn't."

"Then how could you know?!"

"I can't!" He took a deep breath. Calm. Anchor. "You're right, I can't."

Kratos' shoulders slumped, his anger drained temporarily. Yuan took a step closer, an offer of comfort without expectations. Kratos leaned his forehead on Yuan's shoulder. "It hurts."

Yuan ran a hand through Kratos' bloody, matted hair as best he could, an old habit left over from their childhood. "Yes, it does."

"And it won't stop."

Yuan wanted to lie to him. He wanted to tell him that things got better, that it became easier to live with. The truth was that it didn't. It just became easier to pretend, became easier to not notice the pain. Numbness, was what it was. "…No, it won't."

A shaky inhale, shuddering breath.

Yuan glanced around the field. Dead Desians everywhere. Some cleaved clean in half. Heads were missing, limbs at unnatural angles, some burned beyond recognition. Much as he distasted violence, Kratos had always had a talent for it. "C'mon," Yuan told him quietly. "Let's get out of here."

Kratos allowed himself to be led away. It wasn't until they were well away from the Triet, uphill in a rented room in Triet, that Yuan got a good look at what was in his hand. A shoe. A little shoe. _(he remembers a big smile greeting him every time, remembers watching him toddle his way to meet him at the door…)_ He wouldn't let go of the shoe, but Yuan managed to coax him into a shower. The scent of blood on him was almost overpowering and it couldn't be helping.

At first, Kratos didn't respond, really. Just stood beneath the spray. Finally, Yuan soaped up a washcloth and shoved it in Kratos' free hand. "Don't make me bathe you, Kratos." He'd helped do it before, when Kratos had had his arm broken in several places, but this was different. He needed Kratos to get some kind of self-motivated movement going.

His words seem to signal something inside Kratos because he began to scrub himself clean. Yuan stayed outside the shower curtain just in case. Good thing he did. He heard the scream before it started, deep in Kratos' chest. Yuan shoved the curtain aside and saw Kratos staring at his hands, one of which still held the shoe. Some of the blood had flaked off, but they still weren't clean. _(Yuan doesn't think that their hands will ever be clean…)_

"Here," Yuan said, taking the washcloth from his hands and rinsing it before he took Kratos' free hand. He scrubbed at the blood, being careful around the split knuckles—at some point, Kratos hadn't even been using his sword, had used his bare fists to hurt—and being sure to get the blood out from under his fingernails.

When he was finished with that hand, he looked over at the other hand, still clutching the shoe. "Trade hands," Yuan suggested. "That way I can finish cleaning you up."

It took a minute for the suggestion to process and even then, Kratos was reluctant to do it. That hand was considerably easier to clean. Those knuckles were fine and there was less blood. He had to help Kratos scrub at his hair too—difficult to do properly when it's one-handed. He borrowed some clean clothes from the innkeeper while Kratos rinsed and dried himself off.

Yuan also brought a bowl of soup—nothing complex. Squash, small pieces of meat, potatoes and some spice—and sat beside Kratos on the bed. "Here," he murmured. "You should eat something." As angels, they didn't have to eat; their bodies could survive without it, but it was a matter of comfort, of the familiar.

Kratos ate mechanically, not seeing or tasting the food in front of him. It smelled good, Yuan thought, and the Renegades had boasted about the innkeeper's wonderful food before. He was kind out of his depth on this one. He had helped people through grief before, but a lot of it ended up with sleep. He wasn't entirely sure that Kratos _would_ sleep, even though he could.

After Kratos was finished, he stared into the empty bowl. "…what do I do?"

Yuan took his time to answer that one, unsure of how to phrase it. The answer that they had come to, four thousand years ago, had been easy to twist into what they'd done, had been easy to warp them into monsters. He had no doubt that if he said the wrong thing, Kratos would fall deeper into Cruxis.

His thumb went to twist his wedding ring, a habit he hadn't had before Martel died. He thought of Martel, of her strength, her determination. Of her stubbornness and her smiles. And then he thought of Anna, of her temper, her faith—not in the Goddess, not after Kratos told her the truth, but in _people_ , in Kratos himself. That he could be better than he thought himself to be. He thought of sharp-edged grins and her loud, unashamed laughter. Of the way she kissed Lloyd's nose and scooped him up into her arms to blow raspberries into his tummy. He thought of Lloyd's giggles erupting in the air, of his fascination with the world, of the way he was always requesting stories, more stories.

Yuan found himself speaking without making the decision to. "You have to live their share too. Anna and Lloyd. You have to live for them, for all the things they won't see. The better world that they deserved to live in, you have to find it for them. So they can see it."

"…I don't know if I can do that, Yuan. I don't know if I'm strong enough." Kratos' voice wasn't as hoarse as before. The soup had helped.

"Of course you are." Yuan leaned forward a little so that Kratos would meet his eyes. "Anna believed you are. Are you going to prove her wrong?"

"No."

Yuan braced a hand on the other man's shoulder. "You're strong enough, Kratos." One of the strongest people that Yuan had ever known. He moved his hand to curl around Kratos' neck, tugging him closer until he could rest his nose in the wet hair. If he strained, he could smell some blood, but it was difficult. "I promise you, you are."

* * *

Kratos did sleep, eventually. At the very least, he was meditating, though Yuan was fairly certain it was closer to sleep. He scribbled a note and left it on the bedside table before flying back out to the Iselia Mountains.

His nose wrinkled as soon as he landed. The stench of blood and worse would take a very long time to fade from this area. Perhaps it never would; some places were like that. Some areas in Gaoracchia, or out in the elven lands. Ozette, too, reeked from the half-elf massacres twenty years ago.

Yuan ignored the dead Desians—they may have deserved to die, but they also deserved burials. That would be Kvar's duty and Yuan would make sure it was done—and headed in the direction of the house.

Ash. He smelled ash. _(It's a scent he can't forget. His village had smelled of ash and lamb and pomegranates when he had been stolen away. He remembers funeral pyres and fires left raging on the battlefields until they burned themselves out)_

The house. Kratos and Anna's house, small and leaning a bit to one side because building a house with only two people—one of whom was pregnant—was not the easiest thing to do, was little more than ashes. That had been the smoke he'd seen rising in the sky when he'd come yesterday.

Yuan stepped carefully through the charred debris, looking for anything that he could salvage. A keepsake could help anchor Kratos, as Yuan's ring had helped him. Anna had liked taking pictures—all little reminders that she was _free_. Perhaps some had survived. He found remnants of Lloyd's crib, found half of a homemade frame from one of the photographs.

He almost didn't see the glint of gold wedged underneath a ceiling beam.

Yuan shoved the ceiling beam away before crouching in the dirt, carefully cleaning the item off. A locket. The chain was a bit warped from the heat, but Yuan could find a new one. The latch was a bit stiff, but he managed to open it.

The photo was tiny, but intact. One of the few with all three of them, taken about a year after Lloyd was born. Yuan had taken this picture, he remembered.

He closed the locket and stood in the remains of the house. _(No one will know, he thinks. No one will remember the happy family that lived here, the hope that thrived here. No one will remember a woman as brave as Anna Irving and the world hadn't even gotten to know Lloyd. Yuan has known tragedy all his life; he'd thought it couldn't hurt him anymore. He was wrong)_

* * *

He found a goldsmith in Triet, an older woman who was teaching the art to her two sons. He showed her the locket and asked for a new chain.

"It's very important," Yuan told her. "It's for a friend."

"Give me eight hours. But I don't come cheap," she warned.

"I wouldn't expect you to."

He checked on Kratos—still sleeping or meditating. At least he was resting—and got a message to the Renegades via one of their allies that ran the armory. Botta didn't need to be concerned that he'd been found out and captured. The man had enough on his plate.

When he returned in eight hours, the woman held up the chain for his inspection. "I made the links a bit thicker than I usually would—sturdier, you know? And was I right in assuming your friend is a man?"

"Yes."

"I find men have a harder time with small clasps, so I made it a bit larger as well. Is it to your satisfaction?" Yuan nodded and she slipped the locket onto the chain. "Three hundred and fifty gald."

It wasn't a bad price, for this quality of work and for a rush job. Yuan paid her the gald—rounding it out to an even four hundred in thanks—and returned to the inn. Kratos woke at his entry this time.

"How do you feel?" Yuan asked. He didn't expect any kind of positive answer, but he hoped that 'better' was somewhere in the sentence.

Kratos grunted. Yuan wasn't surprised. He sat by Kratos' hip. "I found something."

He held out the locket and Kratos sat up immediately. "You went back?"

"I had to," Yuan told him quietly.

"Did you find anything?" The word had a quiet desperation to it. Yuan couldn't blame him.

"Only this."

Kratos opened the locket, staring at the picture inside. "…Live for them, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know how to do that."

"One day at a time."

Lifting his eyes, Kratos asked, "Is that how you do it?"

His thumb went back to the ring, to its familiar edges. "It's the only way I do it."

Kratos closed his eyes, hand tightening around the locket. "What I said—about Martel—it was uncalled for."

"Yeah, it was. But I'll accept your apology." Even if Kratos didn't say the words, Yuan knew them. He knew Kratos almost as well as himself, after all. "What are you going to do now?" Yuan didn't mention Mithos, didn't mention how what was likely waiting for him on Derris Kharlan. It wouldn't be anything physical, as Yggdrasill's punishments tended to be. No, this was personal and it would be Mithos with his soft, sly whispers and cruel words hitting exactly where people were weak.

"I don't know. I need to figure that out. Alone."

"Are you sure?" Yuan asked. _(He isn't sure whether Kratos is capable of committing suicide. He's tried, before—they both have. Four thousand years is a long time—but neither of them have been able to do it. He wonders if Kratos has been pushed far enough that he'll do it)_

"I thought you said I was strong enough." The words could be teasing. The tone wasn't.

Faith. It was something that Yuan used to not have a problem with. There was a time that he believed that he and Kratos could do anything. Then Martel and Mithos came and it had been easier to believe that they would make it out of the War alive. Faith was what had kept Yuan afloat after Martel's death. Faith that Kratos was right, that they could make Martel's dream come true. Faith in Mithos and his incredible ideas.

These days, Yuan didn't have much faith left. Not in anything or anyone. He had fear. Fear and doubt, he had in spades. He didn't let the Renegades see it, but Botta wasn't fooled.

He had to find faith for Kratos, that Kratos still had that same strength that he'd had four thousand years ago when they stood in the middle of their first battlefield, covered in blood and worse, trembling with the horror of what they'd witnessed, what they'd done. Kratos had been the one to find the will to soldier on. He had to find faith for the Kratos that had been brave enough to teach a slave child to read, to have that slave child as a best friend.

Faith that Kratos would honor his wife and child's memories, that he would find a way to live for them.

"I did." Yuan made himself smirk a little. "Have I ever been wrong about you before?" He stood and made a half-hearted attempt to comb Kratos' hair with his fingers. It was useless, he knew; even a brush would do little to tame that mess. "I'll run interference with Mithos," he told him. "Stall for time for you."

"Thank you." It wasn't for stalling with Mithos. Kratos' eyes were on the locket.

Yuan hummed in acknowledgment. "Don't forget. One day at a time."

"Right. One day at a time..."


End file.
